There has been a lot of outrage in various corners of the blogoshpere over those Democrats in places like New Mexico and Washington state who have blocked grassroots impeachment proceedings. Poputonian over at Hullabaloo has posted on it today. Democrats have to be very, very careful with impeachment, and mindlessly pursuing impeachment plays right into the GOP’s hands and creates a dangerous precedent in our government.
The 1998 impeachment of Bill Clinton was a fucking joke. I think almost everyone here can agree on that. There was more than a little whiff of payback for Nixon and Iran-Contra involved in the GOP’s actions. They had the opportunity to impeach; they simply had to find a crime, so they ginned up the Lewinsky scandal. Keep that in mind for a moment.
Conceivably, a state could force the House to hold impeachment hearings. Exactly how many Blue Dogs do you think will vote to impeach President Bush? The charges being thrown about now mainly revolve around lying the nation into war. But conventional wisdom agreed that Saddam had some sort of WMD. Remember that Sandy Berger, Bill Clinton and Madeline Albright all agreed that he probably had some sort of programs. While it’s undoubtedly true that Bush manipulated and fabricated the specific evidence that led us to war, it reminds me of something I heard people say about OJ Simpson, that the LAPD framed a guilty man.
So the Blue Dogs will have enough cover not to vote for articles of impeachment and protect themselves from having David Broder call them shrill.
But let’s say that Articles of Impeachment pass the House. Does anyone think for a moment Bush will be removed from office? I don’t care how embattled Sununu or Domenici or Collins may or may not be; does anyone think they will violate Reagan’s Eleventh Commandment?
Absent an unequivocal scandal that directly implicates Bush in illegal activity with hard evidence of acts committed against American citizens, it’s doubtful Bush gets impeached much less removed from office.
Which brings me back to Lewinsky. While Bush’s crimes far outweigh anything Clinton did, the GOP has created an impression that impeachment is just another tool in the political toolbox. If the Democrats impeach Bush without the ability to remove him from office, it will play out in the media as a political stunt. Remember that the GOP’s first line of defense is "Clinton did it, too." Who cares if it’s factually false, I saw Rove repeat the lie about Clinton firing all the US Attorneys, and the reporter on NBC didn’t even blink or point out Rove’s mendacity. The GOP will simply scream that Pelosi is getting payback for 1998, and that will become the CW.
If Bush is impeached right now, it becomes a political game rather than a legitimate process to remove a President who is breaking the law. And that denigrates our constitutional process. It means that in thirteen years, when the GOP takes over the House again, they can impeach President Obama for just about anything they fucking well please. Oh, it will fail, but they will have their payback.
There are other, better ways to hold Bush accountable. Investigate everything. Tie his hands on Iran. Find a way to challenge his signing statements in court. Go after the lower lying fruit. Build a case against Cheney and perhaps impeach him.
The GOP successfully denigrated the impeachment process by trivializing it in 1998-9. Bush’s crimes are not trivial, and we have almost two more years of his wretched rule. But we cannot impeach absent some greater smoking gun. Perhaps something breaks in the FISA case, where we discover that they were listening in on John Kerry’s phone calls. Then you can revisit impeachment on the merits.
Consider, finally, the impeachment of Andrew Johnson. Johnson was one of our very worst presidents, as Bush is. He was impeached primarily for being a terrible president. Sure the Congress cooked up the Tenure of Office Act to ensnare him, but the Radical Republicans wanted him gone. As wretched as Johnson was, his impeachment comes off worse in the history books, because of the whiff of partisanship. I’m not saying that Bush deserves to be President. I’ve never wished so much for a parliamentary system in this country.
We can’t impeach Bush for being a terrible president. We can’t impeach Bush because Karl Rove orchestrated enumerable crimes of political coercion against everyone from Iglesias to Plame. We can’t impeach Bush for ruining our standing in the world or for the deaths of American soldiers. We can’t impeach Bush because his cronies have robbed the taxpayers blind.
Not yet.
It is the time for the Death of a Thousand Cuts. It is the time to create an iron clad historical record against his administration. It is the time to keep pressure on those thugs and liars.
It is not time to impeach the President.